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Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

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Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#101

Post by Eridrus »

johansch wrote: post #39
bargl wrote: post #31

Microsoft has done some very good things and some very bad things. I'll let everyone else point out the bad things because there seems to be plenty of that. I personally like the: Surface products, Typescript, C#/F#, .NET Core, Visual Studio Code, and the Hololens. These are all recently new developments for Microsoft that are really awesome. The fact that a lot of this has become open source is even better. You have…

Have you personally tried the Hololens? They appear to have oversold the qualities of at least the first version.

I tried one and was impressed.

The limitations are real, and if they can't solve them and get the cost down it will remain a niche product for business, but I have no reason to believe that's the case.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#102

Post by blowski »

> Under Mr. Nadella, Microsoft is shaping up to be the only pre-internet tech giant to escape the decline of its legacy product—the Windows PC operating system—and emerge as a leader in the new era of cloud computing.

Other than Apple, Oracle and IBM?

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#103

Post by morgante »

tallanvor wrote: post #100
morgante wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a while since I last used Azure, but here are some of the bigger problems I remember: 1. No managed option for MySQL or Postgres hosting. 2. Hard to find resources in the panel and lots of confusion on security practices. 3. Instances randomly dying at an astonishing rate. You're right that "terrible" is hyperbole. I'm sure there are people who are happy with Azure, especially if they're using a Microsoft s…

Well, for #1, is that really surprising when they offer Azure SQL Server instead? And they offer a NoSQL option as well (two, if you include their DocumentDB service). #2 probably more depends on what you are used to. #3 I can see being a problem, although I haven't seen it myself. I've had 3 servers running for over 6 months now and they haven't died once.

Just because the suck isn't surprising doesn't mean it's not there.

Like I said, if you're interested in the Microsoft ecosystem then Azure is probably great. I'm not. For running an open source stack, Azure is not competitive with AWS and GCP.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#104

Post by riazrizvi »

To me, there is no doubt that Windows laptops are seeing a resurgence around Silicon Valley compared to MacbookPro's. Personally I think it is due to their overall superior compatibility with new technologies/hardware (graphics cards for VR and CUDA developers, FPGAs, Arduino, Intel RealSense3D) and better workflows for virtualization/cloud-computing vs MacOS which has become harder to virtualize because of closer binding to the AppStore and withdrawal of access to old OS versions.

As an outsider, I also think Apple seems to have spread their best technical minds thin, by adding the platforms watchOS and tvOS. While I understand the rationale behind watchOS, without the ability for developers to create the watch faces, it's not that exciting a platform, it's too controlled. Anyhow, the result of this talent dispersion, is that they have failed to maintain the MacbookPro's status as the most exciting development platform, which it had been IMO throughout the 21st century.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#105

Post by jdp23 »

mikestew wrote: post #60
manyxcxi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like all big companies your experience depends more on your group than the company as a whole. I've got a number of friends at MSFT in various tech roles, some have their own office as a developer, some are in a cube or open floor environment. My personal experience, having worked on a few skunkworks projects over there with a couple of different teams was that there were two people to an office that was probably ori…

Like all big companies your experience depends more on your group than the company as a whole. I've got a number of friends at MSFT in various tech roles, some have their own office as a developer, some are in a cube or open floor environment. Note that the post you're replying to uses the past tense. The vast majority of my tenure at MSFT was in a private office, but that was over ten years ago. It is my understandi…

Exactly. This was a key part of company culture throughout the 80s and 90s and at the time it was viewed as a signficant productivity win. ('Peopleware' discusses it, IIRC). By the 2000s, with space crunches, they got away from it as a general policy.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#106

Post by arenaninja »

henshao wrote: post #54

Is it just me, or is the usual "copy title, paste into google search" not working this time? I can't manage to find the google search result for this article, even after trying many combinations of google filters/date filters. They've caught on?

I think it's just you.

They don't want to disable that, because it's an easy and free way for them to rank higher in search engines.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#107

Post by Aldo_MX »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #79
supernovae wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find these kind of comments depressing mostly because they scream "group think". (my inner circle says this, so I repeat it) The new MS is much different than the MS I grew up with in the 90s. It's time for the community to recognize this and just let people bask in positive news that is worthy the bask in. I love my Surface Pro 4, I love the fact .net is cross platform, I love that Azure is fast and easy to use, I…

I don't know if Microsoft's leadership is being honest or not these days. But they're also far from transparent, and definitely working against my interests: (1) AFAIK, Microsoft continues to assert patents against Linux without giving the broader community enough information to resolve the supposed violations. (I'm not positive about this one.) (2) AFAIK, Microsoft continues to apply for more software patents, witho…

In case you hadn't noticed, "Embrace, extend and extinguish" is from 1995, 21 years ago.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#108

Post by suprgeek »

The young'uns here probably have not lived thru the Microsoft era in the 90s when "Embrace Extend Extinguish" was the operating motto and any Market where MS entered would send competitors quaking in fear.

They were late to the internet party and then under the disastrous leadership of Ballamer (mindshare wise, not revenue) they completely lost the plot.

Now they are indeed enjoying a resurgence, less evil, more relevant and surprisingly accepting of Open source software. How the world turns....

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#109

Post by strictnein »

dbg31415 wrote: post #62

At what point can we safely assume that Balmer was simply incompetent?

Balmer was good at what he did: making Microsoft lots of money.

Balmer ran MS from 2000 to 2014. Here's what the profits for that time period (since 2002) looked like: https://www.statista.com/statistics/267808/net-income-of-mic...

So not incompetent, just focused on something else.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#110

Post by Camillo »

dpark wrote: post #56
UK-AL wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've gotten rid off the office per developer thing now. So not surprised. A large part is probably demographics of developers is now changing.

It's not entirely gone but it's dying. I'm still in a private office. Lots of devs on my team are doubled up, though. Many teams have already moved to open spaces. Demographics are a factor. Lots of devs, especially younger devs, and especially devs who've worked at other younger companies are asking for open floor plans. Not all of them, but a sizable chunk. That plus reduced cost for providing office space to devs…

They are asking for open floor plans? Is there anything young people won't ruin?
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